Cover Story
Metro Detroit 2025 Pride Guide
Summer’s heating up, and Pride Month is nearly here — a time to be loud, proud, and full of love with festivals, parades, and parties popping off all summer long. We’ve rounded up some can’t-miss events where you can show your true colors and celebrate exactly who you are. (If we forgot something, shoot us…
Paris Travel Guide: Art, History, Gardens and More
The first time I ever heard about Paris, I was seven years old and flipping through an old atlas at my grandmother’s house. My finger traced the Seine River as she recounted her brief layover there in the 1960s, describing the scent of fresh baguettes, smoke curling from street cafés, and how even the rain…
Free Will Astrology (June 4-10)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): You have had resemblances to cactuses in recent days. It hasn’t always been pleasant and cheerful, but you have become pretty skilled at surviving, even thriving, despite an insufficiency of juicy experiences. Fortunately, the emotional fuel you had previously stored up has sustained you, keeping you resilient and reasonably fluid. However,…
What to Do in North Carolina: Outdoor Fun, Culture, and Hidden Gems
It all started over sweet tea. A friend raved about North Carolina’s mountain towns, art communities, and southern hospitality. I’d never been there, but something about how she described it — barbecue smoke drifting down an Asheville street, the hush of the Blue Ridge Mountains at dawn — made it feel familiar. I started plotting…
ACLU lawsuit forces ICE to reinstate Michigan students’ immigration status
Four international students at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan had their F-1 student immigration statuses restored after a federal court approved an agreement resolving a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan against the Trump administration. The lawsuit, filed in April, challenged what the ACLU called an “abrupt and…
The New Detroit, circa 2115
The morning wind zipped between our ears as we hoverboarded down Michigan Avenue. This was always the best part of the day for me and Christian; riding forty, in a hurry, electro-funk in our ears, and unfinished homework at our backs. We hit a somersault at 20th, then switched the tint on our smart glasses…
Where Dreams Gather Dust
In the quiet haze of a dust-laden garage, where tools whispered stories and sunlight filtered through decades of stillness, he dreamed aloud — not of grandeur, but of freedom. He arrived in 1998, seeking a foothold, bringing his older children and ex-wife, planting roots that have branched into a thriving family with nine grandchildren, all…
Smoking with Emmett Till
I check the time. Nine o’clock. This is the longest I’ve waited for any spirit to arrive, but I keep the faith that eventually he’ll show up. I stare at the horizon, kicking stones off his Mississippi steps until they’re cleaner than when I arrived. I lay my head down. I wake up to the…
ancestry.com reveals i am 24% spaniard
jassmine parks is a poet, professor, and flowerchild currently obsessing over softening as a means to thrive & the sacred worlds black women build amongst each other as refuge. More of our 2025 Fiction Issue: “Cottonwood Creek” by Nora Chapa Mendoza “Fair Trade” by Aaron Foley “The Colored Section (after Gary Simmons’ sculpture: Balcony Seating…
The Dream of a Passenger in Peril
Joshua Thaddeus Rainer is a native Detroit-based artist, instructor at the Birmingham Bloomfield Arts Center (BBAC), a 2024 International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) artist-in-residence, and a graduate student at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. More of our 2025 Fiction Issue: “Cottonwood Creek” by Nora Chapa Mendoza “Fair Trade” by Aaron Foley “The Colored Section…
Séance
Hauntings didn’t go with the new occupant’s gentrification decor so they brought in a psychic to remove the ghost while at the same time asking her to prove she belonged. The ghost tried memories, but everything falls through a ghost. She tried violence, but what are a few rattled pans and broken glasses? She tried…
SECOND HAND SMOKE
It happened a long time ago… way back in 1957. We was still livin’ in Alabama. My wife, Geneva had left early that mornin’ to clean house for a white lady on the other side of the hill. Mary, our baby girl is sleepin’ sound. I’m sittin’ there tryin’ to wind down after workin’ hard…
Untitled
Lauren Williams (she/they) is a Detroit-based designer who works with visual and interactive media to understand, critique, and reimagine the ways social and economic systems distribute and exercise power over Black life and death. More of our 2025 Fiction Issue: “Cottonwood Creek” by Nora Chapa Mendoza “Fair Trade” by Aaron Foley “The Colored Section (after…
The Cameras are Always Rolling Until…
A black woman is abducted around enough cameras for the scene to be considered a movie set. They catch the teenage black boy selling weed outside the gas station, they miss the trans woman being set on fire at the pump. A dilemma it is to be considered no one and still be erased to…
Thin Air
It’s like she disappeared right out of the air. She was about a block and a half away from the school when she disappeared. [Redacted] was in good spirits the day before she disappeared. Friends say it’s unlike her to disappear for so long. On the night she disappeared, the 15-year-old attended a disco across…
Crossing
Sherina Rodriguez-Sharpe is Ceferina’s daughter, the Chiis mom, a minister, writer and director, channeling ancestral rituals, and guiding liberatory art movements with her partner, Chace and a constellation of loved ones, to transform trauma into joy, healing and authentic power. More of our 2025 Fiction Issue: “Cottonwood Creek” by Nora Chapa Mendoza “Fair Trade” by…
Whistleblowers sue Hamtramck, alleging corruption and retaliation
Two Hamtramck officials have filed a sweeping civil rights lawsuit against the city, accusing top leaders, including Mayor Amer Ghalib and Police Chief Jamiel Altaheri, of corruption, retaliation, and abuses of power that they say silenced whistleblowers and shielded misconduct. Filed by City Manager Max Garbarino and Officer David Adamczyk, the lawsuit claims the pair…
180-room luxury hotel coming to Michigan Central Station
NoMad Hotels, a global name in luxury hospitality, is set to open its first Michigan location inside the restored Michigan Central Station, marking a major milestone in the ongoing redevelopment of the 112-year-old landmark. The nearly 180-room hotel, called NoMad Detroit, is scheduled to open in 2027, Michigan Central announced Monday. It will occupy the…
Bobcat Bonnie’s closes Ferndale location
Local restaurant chain Bobcat Bonnie’s has closed another one of its stores following months of financial turmoil. In a “bittersweet” Facebook post published Sunday evening, the company announced that Monday will be the last day of business for its Ferndale location at 240 W. Nine Mile Rd. “To our friends […] THANK YOU for 7…
Nope, the ‘nasty’ bathrooms on Belle Isle aren’t moonlighting as a fried chicken joint
Some rumors just don’t hold water. Or, in this case, chicken grease. The Chicken Coupe, a beloved fried chicken joint that’s been serving crispy goodness from a food truck on Belle Isle since 2018, recently moved into the park’s old concession stand. The transition should’ve been business as usual. But then the internet did what…
Detroit’s upcoming Little Liberia restaurant plans preview pop-ups at Brewery Faisan
Chef Ameneh Marhaba is offering diners a chance to preview her upcoming Little Liberia restaurant with a series of pop-up events ahead of its soft opening set for later this year. The “This Is What Liberia Tastes Like” events will see dishes from what is being billed as Michigan’s first Liberian restaurant paired with beers…
Highland Park resident sues city, towing company over seized Thunderbird
Highland Park resident Bob Nelson has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the city and Troy’s Towing of illegally seizing his cherished 1985 Ford Thunderbird, violating his constitutional rights, and causing lasting emotional and financial damage. The lawsuit, filed April 30 in U.S. District Court in Detroit, outlines a series of procedural failures and constitutional violations.…
Muslim cop sues Melvindale, alleges racism, harassment, and retaliation
Hassan Hammoud, a Lebanese Muslim corporal with the Melvindale Police Department, has filed a lawsuit accusing the city and its police department of subjecting him to years of racial and religious harassment before retaliating when he spoke out. The complaint, filed in Wayne County Circuit Court, describes a culture of racism and bigotry inside the…
Free Will Astrology (May 28-June 3)
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The strongest, most enduring parts of China’s Great Wall were the 5,500 miles built during the Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644. One secret to their success was sticky rice, an essential ingredient in the mortar. The resulting structures have been remarkably water resistant. They hold their shape well, resist weed growth, and get…
